November 25, 2010

It is thought the girl, who lives in the Sandwell Council area, was allegedly filmed setting the booklet alight while other pupils watched.

Booklet?

It is understood that the group who published that version of the Koran have since been to the school to talk to pupils.

Were Korans distributed by public school officials? Under what circumstances? If you want a book to be treated with respect, don't hand it out free to teenagers. Maybe the school officials should be arrested.

Bob Badham, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council cabinet member for education, said he had visited the school and believed the atmosphere was generally good among pupils. He added that he did not believe there was a "deeper problem" in the area.

Is contempt for religious indoctrination a "deeper problem" that government should concern itself with? I think the deeper problem is that government officials in the U.K. seem to have lost touch with basic principles of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

Fascinating how rigorously Islamic blasphemy laws are being enforced in the UK, considering that about 5% of the population is Muslim. I wonder how long before people start to figure that you can't beat them you might as well join them and start converting en masse. Certainly seems well within the realm of possibility.

Islam is a religion that is commonly practiced in a form that condemns to death those who convert from Islam to another faith; that calls for death by fire, stoning, or being thrown off a cliff for homosexuals; that condemns blasphemers to death; that routinely persecutes Christians and teaches Antisemitism to children.

Expressing resistance to that religion is to strike a blow for human dignity and individual freedom.

Your own employer - the University of Wisconsin - long ago abandoned the concept of free speech. And illegally so.

http://www.uwsa.edu/bor/policies/rpd/rpd14-6.htm

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has documented evidence of illegal speech codes imposed on students by professors and administrators at the University of Wisconsin.

FIRE:"It is shocking that the UW Board of Regents and many of its member universities still have policies containing language that was ruled unconstitutional by a federal district court in Wisconsin nearly twenty years ago. Although a successful lawsuit against the UW System invalidated the policy prohibiting 'discriminatory comments' including 'jokes,' the same prohibitions are in place today. Obviously, the UW System and all of its institutions must immediately purge this language from all of their policies."

The University of Wisconsin is a force of evil in the United States, seeking to illegally silence the God-given free speech rights of adults who attend. Rights our grandfathers died for.

Fire: "The Regents policy on Racist and Other Discriminatory Conduct, and the numerous institutional policies implementing it, display a shocking disregard for both the letter and spirit of the legally binding court decision in UWM Post.

How can you, Ann, in good conscience, continue to help provide a profit motive for such an institution as this?

Don't you believe in free speech? Or do you only believe in free speech as long as it doesn't cost you your six-figure taxpayer-funded salary and 7-figure pension pension?

It's fascinating how rigorously Islamic blasphemy laws are being enforced in the UK, considering that about 5% of the population is Muslim. What a strange situation.

I wonder how long it will be before people start to figure that if you can't beat them, you might as well join them and start converting to Islam en masse. Certainly seems well within the realm of possibility.

I should quit my job because the University adopts a rule I disagree with? It's not my job to enforce the rule. Your approach would enable the University to oust people by adopting offensive rules. There would be fewer people on the inside of an institution who might do something to change the rule. It's like saying a member of Congress should resign if a law is passed that he thinks violates rights. That makes no sense.

"If you want a book to be treated with respect, don't hand it out free to teenagers."

When I was in high school free pocket-sized bibles were handed out in the parking lot of my public school by members of local churches/Christian organizations. It was difficult at 15 to say no to people pressuring me to take a free bible (even though I had my own bible already), but I never burned it. Though it did sit on the floor of the backseat of my older brother's car for a few years.

In my first semester of law school I was given a free pocket US Constitution. I use it religiously.

"There would be fewer people on the inside of an institution who might do something to change the rule."

You could change the rule by organizing a mass demonstration of everyone (professors and students) inside the University who oppose restrictions on free speech.

You could do a sit in and take over the Admin building until they agree to change the code. I know I've read of other places where people have performed such demonstrations.

You could also refuse to accept new paying customers until the Administration creates a speech code that codifies previous court orders and adheres to the United States Constitution.

You could do lots of things short of quitting.

But you haven't.

Look ... I'm just saying that before you spend a lot of time berating a country that has already been taken over by Islamists (i.e. victims) ... perhaps you should do something bold to protect your own country from the same fate.

How many professors at your University could you - for example - organize to refuse to accept new students until the speech code is eliminated?

The Brits had a run of almost a thousand years since the last invasion that changed their culture. Perhaps they will again assimilate the invaders. I don't count them out just yet.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the Irish become the last Celts standing.

The Brits downfall has been coming since the Labour Party, The Fabians and the Social Democrats merged with union support in the early 1900's.

Labour seized the opportunity of the post-war economic crisis in 1945 to establish the modern welfare state, create the NHS, nationalize the energy industry (coal),expanding the government sector to the largest employer. Which resulted in unionized career bureaucrats assuming control of governance. Even when Labour is out of power, the unions remain in control. It could only end badly.

Since the Dems have been temporarily thwarted from following the Labour Party's path, our canary in the mine is the Oklahoma Sharia Amendment.

If we allow our rule of law to be subsumed by religious law on any level, then the Republic will die the death of a thousand cuts.

Gees this is beginning to sound like a Frank Herbert plot, but the UK's predicament is not fiction, nor is the danger we face in following in their footsteps.

"We have an organization of professors on the inside who work on these things. It's called CAFAR."

Where's the website?

CAFAR has a website, right? Where I can download the position papers? Where do you publicly humiliate by name the Board of Regents who illegally maintain this speech code which was struck down by a court of law?

Is CAFAR's membership list public? Or do you have to hide to avoid retaliation from your peers?

What demonstrations has CAFAR organized?

CAFAR appears to support the presence of a speech code, but wants to quibble about its contents. Do I have that right?

What's fascinating is how energetically the UK enforces Islamic blasphemy law, considering that only about 5% of the population is Muslim. A very strange situation.

I wonder if the native Brits will start converting to Islam in significant numbers any time soon. The powers that be are sending a very clear message that Muslims are a privileged caste in the UK. Why not get yourself a piece of the action?

I wrote about this a couple of months back. There is a violence veto on free speech that society embraces, even the USA.That is - free speech associated with the risk of causing violence is far more regulated and constrained than provocative free speech that people believe will be "tolerated".

THus the 15 year old in the UK would be OK burning the Union Jack or Bible or desacrating a cross because people would "tolerate that". But burning a Holy Qu'ran is beyond the pale because its followers are so committed and so sincere they could not handle the "hurt, grave offense" without resorting to terrorism or raging violence. So society best protect others by quashing young Melanie Phillips.

We did the same thing with "nigger" - making it a firing offense to say it unless it was part of normal repartee involving blacks or in black music - because of intimidation over "causing black violence". And Zionists were able for years to stifle criticism of Israel inside the USA as forbidden because supposedly anti-Semetic and therefore a precursor to "tragic violence".

The whole adulation of "free speech" is society saying one thing and doing another. If Muslims weren't threatening cutting off the heads of media people or bombing their offices, of course more "Prophet Cartoons" would run..rather than mealy-mouthed journalists avoiding it and self-congratulating themselves on their "admirable sensitivity".

If belittled Christian fundies killed a few of their critics, we may have laws and employer practices treating belittling the noble Fundies "The Vast Majority of Which Are Good and Peaceful" as an offense worthy of everyone trotting out and condemning it and people yanked from jobs for giving "Fundie offense".

Same with flag-burning. The Courts and law would treat it far differently if mobs killed flag-burners then raged onto the campuses they came out of - setting buildings on fire and setting off bombs. Then burning the US flag would be a serious matter "everyone" would condemn in the strongest of terms.

It's also the reason that gay activists went after white Mormons for helping kill gay marriage in California but you never heard a peep from the precious dears about any planned marches into the Barrios or black neighborhoods to "make those people pay".

The "violence veto" is so obvious it cannot but be a factor in how any activist group makes themselves untouchable from criticism..or at least be thought about by people thoroughly repulsed by the toleration and legal enablement of creeps like the Phelps Church. Its a terrible thing to admit to, but US society would recognize the fastest way to end the Phelps would be to shoot up a Phelps motorcade with a couple full clips from an AR-15, killing or wounding several of them - then waiting for the media and law to condemn not just the shooters, but also the Phelps people for "provoking the violence and riot" . And afterwards, the "safest thing" would be for all their protest permits to be cancelled and they can all stay in Kansas. And their court appeals to do protest would become infinitely harder as craven courts could then plausibly cite "proven public safety concerns".

They have no Freedom of Speech, no Constitutional Rights, no Constitution."

THe Brits have their own body of law, their own fundamental building blocks of law that are accorded Constitutional status..and their version of free speech rights.

Those who worship our Constitution as some sort of mystical, sacred parchment that explains everything good in America forget it is more about the people and culture you have to work with than any Jesus-blessed piece of paper.

Other countries are well aware of the blind veneration some Americans apply to their founding operating manual (actually the 2nd, as the first operation scheme written by the Holy Founders Themselves was a complete abortion). But they have rejected it as not working for their sort of people and culture.

Had the Haitians adopted our sacred parchment 200 years ago, they would be little better off today than the Liberians were for taking it almost word-for-word 140 years ago.

As for free speech, Europe and Canada took back many rights of speech after WWII at the behest of well-meaning socialists and Jews who argued, successfully, that some speech was beyond the pale and ended up costing many lives in WWII. Laws against free speech involving Nazis became the cornerstone of later suppression of Free Speech against racism, ethnic slurs, and "Islamophobia".

The commentator Ezra Levant wryly noted he was sort of being hoisted on his own petard - as laws crafted in Canada he was being persecuted for had originally come in at the insistance of Jewish activists, Bronsky, and the Canadian Jewish Congress to "suppress speech that targeted Jews".

All the Muslims did was cleverly recognize that it was easy to substitute "Islamic" for "Jew" and gain an immunity amulet from criticism - over Muslim actions in Europe and Canada.

New Ham said, referring to Althouse: "It's easy to claim that you support free speech. It's a lot harder to actually, you know, live up to that principle in your personal life."

Yeah, I suppose Althouse could do something supportive of free speech. Maybe she could create one of the most heavily trafficked blogs on the internet; and then write posts like this one, about topics like this one.

Which she did.

Which is much more important and influential than some self-defeating tantrum you'd have her throw at the U-dub administration. Or some half-ass "sit-in" she might participate in.

Sit-in?

What are you, New Ham? Some sort of goddamned hippie?

What have you done in your life, New Ham, that's more effective and supportive of free speech than what Althouse has done? Let he who is without sin, yada yada yada.

I hear you Ham. Letting people post on your blog (blog advertising blog advertising) is not exactly a heroic stand for free speech.

Ham's point is good, and the real challenge to those who merely talk the talk. Rights don't exist until someone sacrifices for them. Before that, they are just convenient pleasantries taken away from others outside your window, unseen beyond your quickly closed drapes.

I have been hoping that American culture is more seductive than a medieval behavioral guide. America has certainly undermined the professed code of conduct of the Catholics, the Mafia, and the Puritans. Even the Mormons with their home grown religion have altered their views to fit in with the majority. If Muslims feel that they are living in a hostile society,they wil embrace their religion with greater fervor. Look at Poland and Ireland. The Catholic faith waxed under oppression and waned after liberation. It is paradoxical, but the quickest way to wither the Koran, is to treat it with tolerance. Don't let the chador wearer feel heroic. No sane woman wants to wear a chador on a hot day, and no hot woman wants to wear a chador on a cold day...Have faith in the allure of our ways and the silliness of theirs.

The European countries have never been in touch with the basic principles of free speech or freedom of religion the way the US understands those concepts. American law and American liberty are built on fundamentally different basic principles than those of the rest of the free world, even if the results look somewhat similar.

It's the most important reason why US judges and lawyers should be denounced every single time they try to import foreign law; foreign law is fundamentally incompatible with the freedoms of the United States.

(Our principles indeed have their root in English law and culture, but America adopted the more liberal ideas of the English Civil War and Glorious Revolution, while Britain swung back; the American Revolution marked when the two became too incompatible to share a polity, and they've diverged ever-further-apart since. Continental law never had even that much commonality with American, and the British have been influenced ever more by the Continent as a result of their mere proximity.)

I do not think Korans should be burned. But I also think we can burn them if we wish to do so. Because it is just a book. And while I do not burn bibles, I do occasionally throw biblical tracts given to me door to door in the trash. So we have to depend on 15 year girls to defend freedom of speech (however offensive).

Um - The UK does not have free speech. They don't have a Constitution. And last time I checked, the official religion was the Church of England.

I studied in England and I once wrote a letter to British Telecom complaining about an innacurate bill and calling them a bunch of fucking imbeciles and that I wanted the bill corrected. I then got a letter back saying that I could be arrested on the obscenity act of 1965 - or something to that effect.

I notice that the Instapundit NRO link just above yours references another author named Cranmer who suggests that it may be time for an "I'm Sparticus" moment when it comes to islamic blasphemy laws - kinda like the "everybody draw Mohammad day" that our kind hostess found so distasteful.

The UK (not the same thing as 'England', but then you know that) has freedom of speech. We also have protected rights. We don't have a 'constitution' as you would recognise it in the states, but then we've never needed one.

England is almost 1000 years old. Scotland, Wales and Ireland are similarly well established nations. The UK is now over 300 years old. I would argue that it is, politically, one of the most stable countries on the planet. We've never had serious oppression, we don't have revolutions, we rarely see violent demonstrations on our streets. We've had one major civil war and the net result was that the status quo was protected. At the outbreak of WWII the UK was one of only 5 democratic nations left in Europe, and the only major nation in the free world to immediately respond to Hitler and defend democracy.

We don't have a need to write a document telling us how to live our lives because it's something we have built right into our culture.

Looking at the history of the British Isles we've had plenty of 'invaders' and we've always integrated them into our culture and adapted our culture to fit. Now that our Empire has fallen we are, by and large, happy to integrate natives of coutries that were part of that Empire. Our culture will change, there will be hiccups as this happens but we will remain stable as we always have done and we will emerge stronger for it.

I am not of Conservative opinion but Conservative Brit's comment was a breath of fresh air after some of the spittle flecked rants above it. How many of you people have ever been to the UK (not the same thing as 'England'?)